After a space merchant vessel receives an unknown transmission as a distress call, one of the crew is attacked by a mysterious life form and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.
In the distant future, the crew of the commercial spaceship Nostromo are on their way home when they pick up a distress call from a distant moon. The crew are under obligation to investigate and the spaceship descends on the moon afterwards. After a rough landing, three crew members leave the spaceship to explore the area on the moon. At the same time as they discover a hive colony of some unknown creature, the ship's computer deciphers the message to be a warning, not a distress call. When one of the eggs is disturbed, the crew realizes that they are not alone on the spaceship and they must deal with the consequences.Written by
blazesnakes9
(at around 2 mins) During the introduction scenes of the Nostromo, the stars in the background are maintained even though the spaceship is shown from different angles. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Brett:
This is the worst shit I've ever seen, man.
Parker:
What you say? You got any biscuits over there?
Ripley:
Here's some cornbread.
Parker:
Cornbread. Yeah.
Lambert:
I am cold.
Parker:
Still with us, Brett?
Brett:
Right.
Kane:
Oh, I feel dead.
Parker:
Anybody ever tell you you look dead, man?
See more »
Crazy Credits
The title of the movie is slowly created one line at a time at the top of the screen during the opening credits, starting out with the I, then the forward slash in A and the slash in N, and then the vertical lines in L and E (so it looks like / I I I \). After that, the ensuing lines of each letter are added slowly one at a time until the title is fully visible. See more »
Alternate Versions
In April of 2019 Ridley Scott re-released Alien in 4K HDR for both the Theatrical version and the Director's Cut. The biggest changes to the film made were to the Director's Cut. The Cocoon scene with Dallas was omitted, along with various cuts and additional scenes added in for pacing purposes. For example, the new Directors cut includes the Dallas with Mother scene in which Dallas is informed of his fate which was not in the original 2003 Director's Cut.. Since the re-release of Alien in 4K it has been unclear why Scott continued to market this cut as the "2003" version when in fact it should be labeled on the cover as the "2019" Directors Cut considering the gross amount of previous scenes omitted from the '03 version and the changes made in the new cut. See more »
Director Ridley Scott's well-honed talents of pacing and editing create a tense atmosphere that superbly conveys dread and fear of an unknown, unseen evil entity. In 1979, the technology didn't exist to generate a computer image of a Being from another world, and thank God, because this film would have sucked just like all these post-Alien creature features do. Everyone who loves this movie knows what I'm talking about. Ridley Scott had to be extremely careful not to show a full shot of the Alien, except in very brief scenes, and not to reveal exactly how it moves, because then we would see that it is just some tall, skinny guy in a rubber suit. Nowadays, some computer guy would whip up a really scary-looking, but nevertheless FAKE-looking (yes, computer guys, we can tell) Alien, and the director would not have to even think about trying to breathe life into H.R. Giger's hallucinations to make a successful picture.
The dark, cold beauty of this film will never be equaled.
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Director Ridley Scott's well-honed talents of pacing and editing create a tense atmosphere that superbly conveys dread and fear of an unknown, unseen evil entity. In 1979, the technology didn't exist to generate a computer image of a Being from another world, and thank God, because this film would have sucked just like all these post-Alien creature features do. Everyone who loves this movie knows what I'm talking about. Ridley Scott had to be extremely careful not to show a full shot of the Alien, except in very brief scenes, and not to reveal exactly how it moves, because then we would see that it is just some tall, skinny guy in a rubber suit. Nowadays, some computer guy would whip up a really scary-looking, but nevertheless FAKE-looking (yes, computer guys, we can tell) Alien, and the director would not have to even think about trying to breathe life into H.R. Giger's hallucinations to make a successful picture.
The dark, cold beauty of this film will never be equaled.